The Latest With Me

Sunday night I had an awkward happening; a part of my suture from my injury popped like a zit, complete with white pus (eeeuw). My plastic surgeon is out until May 5th, so Monday I had to rush in to see the guy who is covering for him. The verdict: I have "spitting stitches." It means the "dissolving" stitches below the surface of my skin aren't dissolving. Instead, my immune system is rejecting them, quasi-dissolving them, and pushing them towards the suture because it's "the fastest way out."

The weirdness going on in the injury area might explain the migraine.

Today it's raining. I wanted to go work out this evening, but when I heard thunder as I was about to head out of the house, I decided a swimming pool wasn't the safest place to be. I also didn't feel like driving the new car in a "first rain" with all the folks who seem to forget how to drive in the rain, so here I am at home. Even Lady hasn't felt like budging.

Pesach has been rather awkward because we've got a matzoh shortage in the San Francisco Bay Area. I am having to make do with matzoh ingredients like cake meal, matzoh meal, and half a box I found lying around in my cupboard with the inscription "Kosher for Passover." Under the circumstances, it's the best I can do.

I am also due to make another couple of Mad Scientist In The Kitchen posts.

Mad Scientist In The Kitchen: Sugar-Free Chocolate Bread Pudding

I (obviously) made this last week when my loaf of low-cal bread was starting to dry out and fall apart.

Ingredients:

• 6-8 slices of low-cal bread, crumbled up into tiny pieces (around 2 cups)
• two large eggs
• two egg whites (I used the ones in a carton)
• 1/4 cup cocoa powder
• 3/4 cup Splenda
• 1/2 cup milk (I used nonfat, but use whatever you like)
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract.

Preheat oven to 250F.

Beat eggs and egg whites together till well mixed. Add the rest of the ingredients. Mix until well-mixed and the bread has absorbed it all. If necessary, add more milk.

Put mixture into greased pan, cover with foil, and bake for an hour. Uncover and bake for another hour.

The result is a rich-tasting, moist, fudge-y bread pudding. I like it served warm with sugar-free triple fudge ice cream (hey, why not?).

Mad Scientist In The Kitchen: Sweet Cabbage With Noodles, Kosher for Passover

I was invited to lisa_marli's family seder this past Saturday. I always enjoy going because I feel like I'm part of the family and because her seders are fun and not stuffy. Lisa asked everyone coming to bring "some kind of vegetable" this year.

Given that there were going to be at least five children in attendance, I figured I'd try making something the kids would like. Last year I tried making this old Slovak favorite using a head of cabbage and pre-made Passover noodles (the wide ones). The flavor was about right, but the noodles were kind of icky and mushy and fell apart. This year I tried making the dish using pre-shredded cabbage (the kind in the bags labelled "coleslaw") and homemade spaetzle.

The spaetzle:

• 2 cups cake meal
• 1/4 cup potato starch
• 3 eggs (next time I'll use 4)
• 1 cup lukewarm water
• 2 T margarine (Kosher/Parve)
• around 1/2 tsp freshly-ground nutmeg
• around 1/2 tsp freshly-ground pepper
• around 1 tsp kosher salt

In a food processor, mix all the ingredients until a soft dough forms that you can sort of drop off a spoon. If the dough is too stiff, add more water.

Using a spaetzle maker (or if you don't have one, scrap the dough in 1/3 tsp bits off a small plate), drop the noodlets into boiling water in batches until they float, then quickly pull out with a slotted spoon or small strainer into a bowl. Add margarine to keep the spaetzle from sticking to each other. Repeat until the dough is finished (you'll be best off doing this in 3-4 batches).

As for the cabbage, put around 2T margarine in a large enough saucepan. Add the cabbage, cooking till wilted and slightly browned. Mix in spaetzle, and add salt and pepper to taste. Sprinkle lots of dill weed on the final dish.

The end result was only slightly off traditional spaetzle in mouth-feel (hence my recommending one more egg) and taste. I had no leftovers. Next time I might double the cabbage (2 bags instead of 1) to get more of a vegetable component into it.